Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neural developmental disorder characterized by severe and pervasive impairment in thinking, feeling, language, and the ability to relate to others as well as physical stimming, repetitive or stereotypy behaviors. Autism effects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; how this occurs is not well understood. The onset of ASD is generally before the age of 3 years, and is usually first diagnosed in early childhood. ASD can range from a severe form, called Autistic Disorder, through Pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), to a much milder form, Asperger syndrome. ASD has a prevalence of 0.6% in the population, affecting many more boys than girls.
Currently there is no single best treatment for all children with ASD nor is there a simple diagnostic method for the disorder. One point that expert professionals agree on is that early intervention is important; another is that most individuals with ASD respond well to highly structured, specialized programs. As soon as a child's disability has been identified, it is recommended to start the intervention programs. Effective programs teach early communication and social interaction skills. In children younger than 3 years, appropriate interventions usually take place at home or at a child care center. These early intervention programs typically target specific deficits in learning, language, attention and movement. Included are behavioral, communication, occupational, and physical therapy methods along with social play interventions.
While there is no standard diagnosis method for ASD, researchers have recently determined that detecting unusual tracking eye movement in infants can be an indicator of the onset of ASD, see e.g., recent study conducted by the Marcus Autism Center, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and Emory University School of Medicine reported in the online version of Nature. Specifically, the inability of an infant to focus on specific objects, particularly the eyes of other individuals, may indicate visual perception issues consistent with ASD.
The averted gaze of autism interferes with every available therapy for the disorder, including occupational, physical, and speech therapies. Because a child does not have the verbal or cognitive abilities to identify the visual and perceptual confusion, the child is typically unaware of the visual spatial confusion and is unable to communicate this problem to adults. The gaze aversion creates an obstacle to every task and is pervasive. The emotional costs to the individual and family facing the insurmountable obstacle of visual confusion with visual and motor gaze aversion are immeasurable. A child with Autism frequently places hands out to the sides of the body helping to feel for a wall, chair, or the doorknob. The chance of falling and being injured is greater with visual confusion.
The inability of a young child to recognize his own visual perception issues is an obstacle to treating those issues. Further the averted gaze of autism is a hindrance to the known therapy methods, which are believed to be more effective when they are implemented as early as possible. Thus there is a need for a method and apparatus to treat the inability to maintain a direct and sustained visual gaze, for those with autism or other visual and perceptual disorders.
The present invention relates to the use of prisms in the lenses of eyeglasses to treat averted gaze in children. The use of prisms to treat a variety of visual disorders is already well-known. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,779,972 and 8,696,116, both issued to the present inventor and hereby incorporated within this disclosure by reference, disclose the use of one or more prisms within standard glasses frames to treat patients suffering from visual field loss. Until now, however, no one has utilized prisms as herein described to treat the averted gaze that is common in ASD and other visual and perceptual disorders.